This year two interesting books were published that I’d like to give special mention here. The first book is called Unlikely friendships: 47 remarkable stories from the animal kingdom and is written by the American science journalist Jennifer S. Holland, who also writes articles for National Geographic.

Cover of the Dutch translation

The book describes 47 special cases of some form of friendschip or affection between members of two different animal species. We read about an elephant and a sheep who are inseparable, a cockatoo who carresses a cat, a baby rhesus macaque and a pigeon who sleep next to each other (see the picture of the cover), and a pitbull dog who protects and loves chicks. Also presented is the story about the signing gorilla Koko and her kitten All Ball, as well as the friendship between the orangutan Tonda and the cat T.K. (see my post “Great apes and their attitude towards other animals”). The relationships of affection between animals across the species barrier are all of a recent date and come from all over the world. Each story has some magnificent pictures of these animals, some of which are normally each other’s natural enemies. It’s an inspiring book about exceptional relationships between animals who belong to different species and is thus an example for us humans. A great book to get or give.

The second book I’d like to give attention to here is So klug ist ihr Hund [This clever is your dog]. It is written by Juliane Kaminski and Juliane Bräuer, researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology at Leipzig University, who both do a lot of studies about the cognition of dogs and other animals. It has only recently been published, so there is no translation yet, but I wanted to mention it here for those who can understand German well. This is because it is a really good book, which discusses in a way that is is understandable to everyone the recent knowledge about dogs and their cognition or intelligence. Besides information about the origins and domestication of dogs and their natural communication, the book presents the current scientific state of the art about the various aspects of cognition in dogs. There is a chapter about the understanding of the seeing of others by dogs, a chapter about the interpretation by dogs of human communicative signals, about the knowledge of dogs about the material world they live in, and the differences in cognition of various dog breeds are also discussed. Of course, it also includes the research with Rico and other border collies, who can understand hundreds of human words for all kinds of objects. Besides all this fascinating information, the book also contains several small tests that you can carry out with your own dog to determine whether he or she is capable of certain cognitive feats. And this book too has many great pictures of dogs, as well as about the various studies that are currently being done on the globe with various species of dogs. So if German is not a problem for you, than this book is a must-have for anyone who likes to know more about the intelligence of dogs.

On Thursday April 9, 2015 a 1-day symposium will be held at Maastricht University (The Netherlands), called Humans, Animals and Nature: A Sustainable Relationship? Organized by the Maastricht University Graduate School of Sustainability Science (MUST) and its Founding Director professor of “Sustainable Development” Pim Martens. The symposium will feature con […]

On Monday 16th of June 2014 the seminar Animal behaviour, cognition & welfare will be held in Tel Aviv, Israel. The 1-day seminar is organised by AnimalConcepts in collaboration with the Institute for Animals in Philosophy and Science and is hosted by Tel Aviv University. How much do we really know about animal minds? How […]

Saturday 8 February ape expert dr. Esteban Rivas and dolphin expert dr. Justin Gregg will organise the third and last seminar in the Apes & Dolphins Seminar Series at the Free University in Amsterdam. This time the seminar will be wholly dedicated to the moral status of great apes and dolphins. Are they morally special […]

In 2014 the Institute for Animals in Philosophy and Science is organising for the first time Animal Lectures in English for an international audience. In these lectures psychologist and philosopher dr. Esteban Rivas will present up-to-date reviews of the current scientific state of affairs regarding the consciousness, emotions, and intelligence of nonhuman a […]

On Saturday, February 8th, 2014 the third and last seminar in the Apes & Dolphins Seminar Series will take place in Amsterdam. This time the seminar will be dedicated to the moral status of great apes and dolphins. Are apes and dolphins morally special? Or maybe they’re not? Join ape behavior expert Esteban Rivas from the Institute for […]

Finally some time for a new vegan recipe! I have had many requests for a vegan recipe of a typical Dutch soup: split pea soup! A vegan split pea soup is in fact really easy to make, by simply leaving out meat from traditional recipes. Split pea soup is delicious now we’re in Fall again […]

This is a great vegan recipe for Thanksgiving or Christmas. I found it on the website VegKitchen, which has loads of good recipes for the holidays and beyond. I’m making this recipe for Christmas this year. It’s based on the stuffing meat-eating Americans put into a dead turkey, but for this recipe you don’t have […]

I was surfing the net recently for vegan pasta recipes and found this delicious recipe for pasta with a tomato and capers sauce. It’s from the German website Veganwelt by Ullrykka, which contains over 2,000 vegan recipes. Click here to go to her website. I have adapted her recipe for this sauce only slightly. The […]

I recently found a very appetizing looking recipe on VegWeb.com by Caroline Disko from Ontario, Canada, for pasta shells with walnut stuffing. My mouth was watering when I read the recipe, so I decided to make it myself. However, I could not find the jumbo pasta shells for the original recipe anywhere here in Amsterdam […]

One of my favourite foods is Indian food. Given the hinduistic tradition of the subcontinent, the Indian kitchen contains many vegan and vegetarian recipes. This recipe is for an eggplant curry, spicy and tasty. Ingredients (for 2 persons) 2 large eggplants 1 onion 2 tomatoes 1 red bell pepper 2 red or green chilli peppers […]